holding onto what I know (what I know I must let go)
by RevolutionaryWarlock
Summary: Alex knows that John killed himself. He doesn't know much else, anymore. Modern AU. Trigger Warning: Suicide, depression.
1. do I want to say goodbye

**TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide and depression**

 **Author's Note:** **I've written something! Yay!**

 **No idea when LLJL will be updated. Sorry bout that.**

 **This is almost an AU, like 5 years in the future, continuation of Life, Liberty, and John Laurens, but it's also not, even though I include little references and stuff. That one is definitely more happy than this one. Read that one if you aren't very happy with a lot of sadness and angst. You don't have to read that one to read this one, though.**

 **Inspired/somewhat based off of the short film Tick Where It Hurts by Bertie Gilbert. It's on Youtube. I definitely recommend watching it.**

 **Cheerios for Sierra.**

 **I wrote most of this in the past two hours, in which I've been incredibly tired. I only edited it once. If it's really terrible in the light of day, I'll come back and fix it.**

 **Playlist at the bottom.**

* * *

x x x

x x

x

 _I haven't written anything in three months. Not one word. Not even a fucking grocery list._

 _My professors took my excuses for all my late assignments and skipped classes in stride, with a sad glance at the empty seat next to mine. But now agitation is weighing down their patience. They're frustrated with me. I should just tell them that I won't be doing those assignments, ever, not even if they were the only thing that could keep me alive._

 _I should tell them that I'm frustrated with me, too._

x

x x

x x x

Alex stared at the blinking cursor, his heavy eyes squinting at the blank space after his words.

He supposed the words were his, even if he wasn't able to recognize them as that.

He trained his sight on the white even though he was growing more discomforted with it by the millisecond. The only reason he sat there and let the light burn his eyes was because he knew that if he didn't focus on it, he'd look at the picture above his desk, and he wouldn't be able to sleep for another week.

Alex couldn't bear to rip that one down when he did so to the rest of them. The emptiness in the apartment after he took down all of John's drawings, John's pictures, ticket stubs, band posters, Alex's favorite quotes scrawled on Post-it notes, John's papers with a bright red A circled at the top, was blinding. All that was left was the only self-portrait John ever did.

Alex couldn't bear the sight of tearing it to pieces like he'd done with all the other drawings John had let him put up, so he didn't. Now he couldn't even bear to look at it.

Alex sighed and rubbed his face, trying to shove away the numbness and failing. He fumbled in the feeble light for his phone and called Eliza. It was slightly past two in the morning, but she would answer for him. She always did.

Alex may have been abusing Eliza's kindness and her worry for him, but she had been the one to tell him to write. And she was going to hear him complain about it.

"Alex."

"Hi, Liza."

"What do you need?"

"I'm writing."

Pause. "You are?"

"Yeah, and I feel like shit."

"Well, you've been feeling like shit for a while now, so is it any different from your usual shit?"

"It is, because writing has never been shit for me. Much less writing about _him."_

Rustle. Sigh. "Alex, what else are you going to do?"

Numb.

"Alex?"

Burn.

"…"

Ice.

"You still there?"

Shatter.

"I don't know, Eliza."

"Well, all that matters is what you do know. Write that. Write what you know."

"I don't know anything."

"Write that."

"…"

"Sweet dreams, Alex."

Sigh. "Goodnight, Eliza. I'm sorry for waking you."

"Get some sleep, for once. Please. It will do you more good than you think."

Click.

Buzz.

Sigh.

x x x

x x

x

 _I loved him. I don't know if he knew that I did, but that's the truest thing I know at the moment. Other than that, I know nothing else._

 _It's all that I know._

 _And if he did know…_

 _…_

 _…_

 _…_

 _I hope he didn't know._

x

x x

x x x

Alex wrote until he went on full shutdown. His fingers were still hovering over the keyboard when he fell face first onto his desk, exhaustion devouring him.

Unlike Eliza's wishes, his dreams were as sweet as burnt salt in a cut.

Alex saw the car before he saw John. It was the car John's father had given him, not the car he actually drove. Not the car John had taught Alex how to drive in.

It was gray, and it was expensive, and it was a gorgeous vehicle, and there were three dents in the left side passenger door from when John had taken a baseball bat to it after a bad visit home. Alex had watched, just hoping that he wouldn't smash a window. Not that he would have cared if he did.

It was _the_ car, and when Alex had first been told, he'd thought that _that piece of shit, even smashed to bits, ugly, smoking pieces scattered all over,_ did not deserve to bury John's pieces inside of it _._

And then John was there.

He smiled at Alex and waved his keys. "You coming with?"

Alex looked around him, spinning in circles, trying to find something familiar and coming up dizzy and empty handed. Utterly lost.

John was still smiling when Alex turned back to him.

"Where are you going?"

John's grin, a grin that Alex saw whenever he closed his eyes, that he dreamed of assaulting with kisses, a grin that Alex always returned, was empty. Dead. Alex felt as hollow as John looked.

"Far away."

"Why?" Alex was nervous, his hands sweating, and he couldn't figure out why.

"I've always wanted to go there. And now, I've got nowhere else to go."

"… what would we do there?"

Grin. "That's the fun part. So, are you coming?"

Alex hesitated, and John noticed. Something was off, feeling like he was being held back against a wall, like even if he tried to step forward, his feet would tangle with themselves. He'd do anything for John, follow him anywhere and everywhere.

But he just couldn't.

"I… I don't…"

"You don't want to go with me?" John sounded mad, and Alex, for once in all the time he'd known John, was scared of him. A baseball bat flashed through his mind.

"John, no."

"Alex," John had softened his voice now, and reached out to grab Alex's wrist. The keys pressed against the inside of his wrist. Numb.

"I want you to come with me, Alex. I _need_ you."

"John, what are you doing?"

"What I have to. And I need you with me to do it."

"I don't think you need me." _But I need you._

"But I do, and you need me." _More._

"What?" _Than I need._

"You think you'd do this without me? No, you'd never. But together we can. Everyone does at some point. We both just need a little leg up." _Anything in the World._

"But John-" _And still._

"Alex." _We._

"I-" _Were._

"You." _Never._

Light.

 _Enough._

Alex woke up with his heart pumping, his tears sticky on his face, puddling on his keyboard, small circles dotting the worn wood of his desk.

x x x

x x

x

 _I really just don't understand._

 _How he could do that._

 _How he didn't know how much everyone cared about him and how much they'd hurt._

 _How he thought that_ that _was his best option._

 _… How he could leave me._

x

x x

x x x

Alex cried until he had nothing left inside him, and the next time he fell asleep, he made it to his bed before he passed out.

x x x

x x

x

 _I had nothing. But I had him. And it's selfish and horrible and awful of me but he was mine, and he was enough._

 _But I guess I wasn't._

 _He'd always had more than I did. Of everything. And maybe it was just too much._

 _So how can it hurt both ways?_

 _Because I have nothing now._

 _And he still has everything._

x

x x

x x x

Alex woke up, positive he had gone blind. He promptly rolled over and fell out of his bed, feeling the hard floor in his elbows and knees and legs and chin, deep into his core. Groaning, he turned away from the window, and curled himself into a ball until he could convince his mind and body to wake up. It took a while.

By then, the light passing through the blinds was orange and low in sky. Alex untucked his knees from his chest and stood, stretching his sore limbs. Trying not to think about how John would have been sitting out on their fire escape, trying to capture the perfect, vibrant colors of the sunset outside right then.

Tugging his phone from the charger as he went, Alex took off to the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of lonely Cheerios. He was pretty sure that the milk was expired, but he drowned the bowl, anyway.

The number of messages on his screen was startling, and he nearly choked on a big bite when he clicked on his lock screen.

Laf: Hey, Alex. Herc and Peggy and I were planning on stopping by later. Want to go out to see a movie or something? On us. Or we can bring some take out over there. But WE ARE COMING OVER so you best get your ass out of bed

Laf: are you dead? are you ignoring me?

Laf: would you rather talk to Herc? you probably want to talk to herc.

Hercules MULLIGAN: yo we is coming over soon

Hercules MULLIGAN: hope you like orange chicken and a fuck ton of fortune cookies

Hercules MULLIGAN: Laf thinks you're mad at him.

Hercules MULLIGAN: please tell him that you are not mad at him

Hercules MULLIGAN: Seriously. If you're dead, your grave stone better read "I am not mad at Laf"

Hercules MULLIGAN: I just told him that you told me that you aren't mad at him, so you better not be. Otherwise, take it out somewhere else.

Hercules MULLIGAN: we'll be over in an hour

Angelica Schuyler: Call me when you have a chance, Alex. And I do not mean several weeks from now. I mean your next spare moment. I don't care if you're in the shower, just fucking call me. Ok?

Eliza: Morning, sunshine. Did you sleep at all?

Alex didn't bother to reply to anyone but Eliza, knowing she'd knock down his door in a few hours if he didn't.

You: slept like shit, feel like shit, am eating cheerios to dull the pain.

Eliza: Cheerios. That bad?

You: I may try to impale myself with this spoon

Eliza: Well at least you slept.

You: The cheerios are stale

Eliza: I'll bring over cookies later.

You: don't bother. Herc/Laf/Peggy are bringing Chinese.

Eliza: ooooo I could use some take out. It's been a long week.

You: Oh, so now I'm having a house party?

Eliza: Yep. I'll be over after I finish up my last lesson.

You: Is it the brat with the trumpet again?

Eliza: No, it's the brat with the oboe. Gtg. Btw, Angelica needs you to call her.

You: So she does. See you later.

Alex paused, knowing Eliza was gone, but feeling like he should still be talking. She was busy, and he wasn't, and she had to leave and he was left alone. It wasn't her fault, but Alex felt rejected.

It was probably just the Cheerios.

x x x

x x

x

 _He always stuck to his gut, which was why he was the best partner. In anything, really. He could do anything if he tried. If he really wanted to._

 _We had plans._

 _Well, I guess,_ I _had our plans, and he had his own._

 _His were fairly simple._

 _I always over-complicated mine._

x

x x

x x x

The Cheerios didn't make good company, so Alex was glad that Hercules and Lafayette and Peggy knocked at his door only a short time later. By inviting themselves over, his friends gave him no choice in the matter of seeing them again, which he'd been avoiding as much as he could. He supposed he was grateful for it. But he couldn't help the clench of his gut, the sick feeling as he unlocked the door to let them in.

" _Mon ami!_ " Lafayette squealed upon arrival, backing up against Hercules broad chest when he saw Alex. His bright eyes were wide, and he gripped Alex's shoulders. "You look like shit."

"I'm trying out a new look. Maybe I'll start a trend."

Hercules snorted as he passed through the doorway, and Lafayette mumbled, "Not any trend I want to follow," before kissing both of Alex's cheeks and following Herc. Peggy smiled at Alex, her bright yellow hair bouncing behind her.

"Hi, Alex!" she pulled him into a tight hug, stuffing his face into her curls. "It's nice to see you," she whispered. Alex hadn't seen her since the funeral.

"It's nice to see you too, Peggy," he admitted softly in the safety of Peggy's hair, and returned her embrace. She didn't seem like she wanted to let go, but he pushed her away gently when it became uncomfortable.

"Your sister should be stopping by soon."

Peggy's brows crinkled, and she pouted her lips. "So you talked to Angelica? Hm. I though she wasn't coming for another week."

"What? No, Eliza's coming over."

Understanding shook her features. "Oh. Okay. I hope she's bringing cookies."

"She should be. And what about Angelica coming next week?"

Peggy shrugged. "You gotta call her."

"So I've been told."

Closing the door behind him, they followed Hercules' and Lafayette's loud arguing to the kitchen, where bags of Chinese take-out had been unpacked across Alex's small table.

Ignoring Lafayette's rushed criticisms, Hercules turned to Alex and asked, "Dude, I know you haven't been out in a while, but you do still own silverware and plates, right?"

"Do you not know how to open drawers?"

Hercules rolled his eyes in sync with Lafayette, who made a rude gesture at the larger man and shook his head at Alex, who chuckled.

"Go put on some lame TV show. I'll set up the buffet," Hercules grumbled, already setting out to work.

"Oh, so fancy," Alex mumbled to himself. Peggy heard and they laughed, following orders and settling on the couch in the living room.

Flipping through channels with little luck, Alex turned to face Peggy. "How are your classes going?"

She rolled her eyes and groaned, which made Alex chuckle. "About as well as they can be. Though, my Psychology teacher is sort of cute…"

Alex tsked playfully. "Oh, Peggy. I always knew you'd be the one to sleep with a teacher to get an A on a final."

"Funny, Eliza and I thought the same of you."

"Touché."

"How are yours going?"

Alex was quiet for too long.

"Alex? Are you still not going to your classes?"

"It's sort of hard to think about political agendas and pleading the fifth and paragraph structure when I can barely remember why I cared about them at all in the first place."

Both of them were quiet, listening to the laugh track on the game show and Laf and Herc's bickering from the kitchen.

"Have you written anything?" Peggy asked softly. Alex hardly could hear her.

"Nothing that matters."

"Eliza told me you did."

"Like I said, I haven't written anything that mattered since John-"

The word caught in Alex's throat. It wasn't a word he had ever actually said paired with his name, not sure he'd ever even said it out loud after all that had happened.

"I'm sorry," Peggy whispered. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No," Alex rubbed his eyes and started flipping through the channels again. "It's okay."

"But is it? Because you're not."

"Peggy, I-"

"We all feel like shit, okay? And guess what? If you have to live in your own shit, might as well make it a big old pile of shit."

"That was a terrible metaphor."

"My use of rhetorical devices isn't important. But you are. And I am. And John is. You can _talk_ to us, Alex. You don't have to shut yourself out."

"I may not have to, but it sure as hell is what I'm going to do."

"Alex-"

"COME AND EAT YOU FILTHY BASTARDS!" Hercules' thunderous voice called. Alex couldn't have been happier to get out of that conversation, but he felt guilty as Peggy walked beside him to the kitchen.

Eliza was there already, sitting at the table. Both Peggy and Alex had failed to hear her come in. She hugged Alex tightly and squeezed his arm before greeting her sister.

Eliza looked around and sighed, smiling. "Just like old times. Small apartment, sketchy - but delicious - food, and having all night to get incredibly drunk. Bring it on."

"No alcohol for me, folks," Hercules announced. "I got an interview tomorrow."

"Oh thank god. Please, no one get him drunk," Peggy held her arms out, then pointed directly at Herc. "That man needs to get a job."

"And you need to get a better attitude," Hercules chided her snottily, though both of them were smiling. It was one of their roommate things that Alex never really understood.

Sharing an apartment with John had always been different.

"Alright. You peoples better be hungry and better start eating this food, because I did not haul my ass down to the Dragon to get all this fucking food for y'all to stare at it."

They followed Herc's directions as he lined them up at the "buffet", making sure they took something of everything and didn't horde the fortune cookies. He made Lafayette put four of them back after he snuck a handful into his pocket.

Alex's table was too small to fit them all, so the formed a circle in the living room, Peggy hogging the couch and the rest of them in a circle on the floor. After they'd all started eating, Laf got up and brought back two six-packs. Alex popped the top off of a bottle right away, taking a long drink. Eliza did the same, and when Alex gave her a look she flicked a noodle at him.

"So when are we going to crack out the chick flicks or board games? By midnight I either want to be blubbering, wrapped in a blanket of my own sadness, or having Monopoly money being showered over me," Peggy announced decisively.

"We have to do the fortune cookies first!" Lafayette announced, shooting Peggy a deadly stare. She didn't dare argue with him. Lafayette took fortune cookies seriously.

Hercules cracked his open first, clearing his throat as he smoothed out the paper. "'Your kindness will bring you success'… in bed."

Eliza snorted then jumped in with her. "'Your true friends will reveal themselves to you in the toughest times'… in bed." Lafayette howled, and Peggy read hers, shaking her head.

"'Dreaming is believing, but you can't believe unless you dream,'" she threw her hands in the air. "Fuck that. Mine can't be followed with any sort of sexual innuendo and be funny."

"Yes it can," Alex argued. "'Unless you dream'… of your Psychology teacher naked."

Alex laughed when Peggy chucked half of her cookie at him. He caught it and stuffed it in his mouth.

"What about yours, Alex?" Eliza elbowed him.

"Yeah, read it!" Laf chimed in, taking a gulp of beer.

Alex rolled his eyes and sighed, ripping off the plastic and cracking open his cookie. The slip of paper was shorter than his pinky finger. He cleared his throat dramatically. "'Pain will guide your soul to true happiness'… in bed."

"Kinky," Peggy noted while the other three howled. "Maybe you're the one meant to screw my Psych teacher. He knows how to work with the brain," she waggled her eyebrows.

Alex laughed even though he didn't really find her comment amusing.

Peggy clapped, silencing the laughter. "TIME FOR CHEESY ROM-COMS. I NEED ME SOME GOOD CHEESE."

"All I got in the fridge is mozzarella," Alex chimed in. Peggy threw the other half of her cookie at him.

"I was thinking that we should go out," Eliza said, eliciting a furious expression from her sister. Seeing that, she added. "No, out to see a movie. You can pick. I just thought that we should… go… out…"

All of them tried to keep their eyes off of Alex and failed.

Alex panicked. He wasn't getting in a car. He didn't want to leave his apartment. He didn't want to go see a movie on a Friday night with his slightly-intoxicated friends any more than he wanted to rip out his fingernails. They knew that, and he knew that they wouldn't leave until he agreed to come with.

He resigned himself to that outcome.

"Alright," he felt all four pairs of eyes fix on him with shock. "As long as there's a theater we can walk too."

Hercules immediately pulled out his phone, no doubt Googling the nearest theaters.

Eliza smiled. "Great! Well, let's go." She began to gather up the dirty plates and brought them to the sink, stacking the plates and silverware methodically before packing up the food.

"Peggy, you can pick the movie," Herc motioned for her to come look at his phone, which she snatched away from him in a quick swipe and began scrolling through the showings.

Alex unfolded himself from his spot on the floor, and began the hunt for his wallet. He couldn't remember the last time he saw it, and he noted to himself that that was probably not a good thing.

He rifled through piles of clothes, and finally found it buried behind a stack of books on a side table in the hall. Alex went to move the books, his hands circling their spines, before he realized what they were.

John's sketch books.

Alex froze. He couldn't move. Couldn't let go, couldn't hold on. He froze. The top one was propped open, pages folded in the way he knew John hated because then they got wrinkled or smudged.

Alex had to bite his lip to keep from screaming or swearing or sobbing or all at once. His hands shook, but before he even realized what he was doing, he was flipping to the marked page, eyes wide.

Colorful swirls decorated the paper, doodles that John did whenever he had any kind of creativity block. Alex always thought they were just as beautiful as anything else John made, no matter how many times John had told him that they were just scribbles.

Something fell to the floor.

Alex felt hollow and lost and light and burning as he tore his eyes from the pages and bent down to the floor to pick up the scrap.

It was a ticket stub for a rerun of Good Morning Vietnam. John and Alex had always gone to see the reruns at the old theater just on the outskirts of town whenever they could. They were usually the only ones that did, and most often had the entire place to their selves. Alex was sure that the theater had to have gone out of business by then.

He turned the ticket over, and that's when he saw the arrows, precise lines pointing to the name of the theater, Yorktown Films, circled over and over again in continuous loops9. The address under the name was underlined once.

Alex stared at the ticket for far too long. Lafayette appeared at the end of the hall, his voice startling Alex.

"Hey, you coming?"

For a second Alex though he was back in his dream.

"Uh, yeah. You go downstairs, I'll be there in a minute."

Lafayette nodded, and Alex nearly missed the sad look in his eyes as he turned away. Soon, Alex heard the door close.

He blinked himself out of his daze, the tears out of his eyes, and stuffed the ticket into his pocked, and his wallet in the other.

He went after his friends, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

x x x

x x

x

 _He wanted to join the fucking Peace Corps. And then he does_ that.

 _I just don't understand. I don't think I ever will._

 _Peace Corps._

 _So much for becoming a Solider of Peace, John._

 _…_

 _…_

 _…_

 _I don't think it was ever really about Peace._

x

x x

x x x

* * *

 ** _Playlist:_**

 _Collar Full / Panic! At the Disco_

 _Gasoline / Halsey_

 _Midnight City / M83_

 _Quand Tu Es Passee / Naim Amor_

 _Tear in My Heart / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _Papaoutai / Stromae_

 _Glowing Eyes / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _You Can Call Me Al / Paul Simon_

 _Heathens / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _Danger / Twin Forks_

 _Droimeann Donn Dilis /Niamh Parsons_

 _Radioactive / Imagine Dragons_

 _Foreshadows / David Nevue_

 _Together We Will Live Forever /_ Clint _Mans_ _ell & Kronos Quartet_

 _Sedated / Hozier_

 _Colors of the Wind / Marilyn Byrnes_

 _Down / Dodie Clark_

 _Flowers In Your Hair / The Lumineers_


	2. there's things I wish I knew

**Author's Note:** **I don't know if I really have anything to say.**

 **I'm very impressed with myself for having written this much in literally a day, even though this chapter is half the size of the first. But I know where I'm going with it, so that's wonderful.**

 **Lyrics from The Moon Song by Karen O.**

 **Playlist at the bottom.**

 **Thanks for reading.**

* * *

Alex hardly paid attention to the movie. For two and a half hours, he looked blankly at the screen, absently munching on popcorn and feeling the ticket buzzing in his pocket. He didn't know the characters' names, couldn't follow the plot, and after it was over he couldn't even have said what the title was.

No one else noticed anything out of the ordinary, and they were able to laugh and boo at the film when it was called for, Peggy bursting into shaking sobs at the end. The huddled around her once the credits started rolling, both laughing at her and comforting her at the same time. Alex didn't laugh.

On the way back to his place he walked closely to Eliza, off-balance in the dark and thoroughly lost, not that he was actually looking where he was going. After he nearly fell off the curb Eliza took his arm as the others went stumbling on ahead of them.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly, her voice in harmony with the cold night breeze.

"Nothing."

She had nothing to say to that.

Then she gasped, pointing up to a neon sign just up ahead of them. "Hey, remember that? That one night when we all got so drunk at Angelica's engagement party. Hercules fell over and broke one of the bar stools, Lafayette sassed that lady off of the stage and told her that she sounded a bit too nasally for his taste, and then went on to do his own jazz/reggae/punk rendition of Hollaback Girl. And I drank too much vodka and threw up in the bathroom for at least an hour."

Alex laughed at the memory, vividly colored in a haze of drunkenness. "Yeah, that sure was a night to remember. I still think that we should have gone back and reenacted it after Angelica left that Church fellow at the alter."

Eliza snorted. "When it was over they handed her the bill with a note that said "'You and your entire party are now banned from this establishment _eternally.'_ "

"I thought it said indefinitely."

"They might have said that, but we both know what they actually meant."

"True that."

Alex tried not to think about the rest of that night, about walking home drunk with John at his side, but it was inevitable.

x x x

x x

x

" _Are we going the right way?" John asked, steadying himself on the brick wall, forcing Alex to stop his confident march down the sidewalk._

" _Yes, now get your ass up and let's get back before we get jumped."_

 _John groaned as he straightened himself up so he could walk. "We should have called a cab."_

" _It's one more block, stop whining. We don't even have to cross any streets."_

" _Alex, I'm so sleeeeeepyyyy," John nearly plowed into Alex, but he caught him, and John's arms wrapped around his waist, and Alex gripped his elbows to keep him from taking them both down. Even hopelessly drunk, exhausted, and walking in the middle of the street, Alex's heart took off and his breathing stuttered._

" _Whoa, whoa, c'mon, we're almost back. Stay awake John, or else I'll leave your sorry ass on the curb for the garbage truck to come and get it in the morning."_

" _No, you wouldn't," John mumbled with his face buried in Alex's shirt, and he was right._

 _Somehow, Alex dragged John back to the apartment, up the stairs, down the hall._

 _That night, Alex fell asleep in John's bed, with John's arms wrapped around him like they were never going to let go._

 _He woke up hungover and alone in sheets that weren't his._

x

x x

x x x

Eliza helped Alex find his way back to his apartment and he bid his friends goodbye. None of them were planning on staying over since Herc was still sober, and Alex wasn't sure he was comfortable with being left alone, but he was.

Numb.

It was late, slightly past midnight, an hour Alex had grown comfortable with in sleepless night after sleepless night, and the chill of the night air sunk down to his toes as he sat out on the fire escape.

The ticket with John's arrows and John's circles was clenched between his fingers, now the ink was smudged with his finger prints and the paper was warped around the edges.

 _John, what do you want from me?_ he thought, the words soft against his lips. Only the stars were there to hear him.

Alex slept in his own bed that night, his question left unanswered.

x x x

x x

x

 _John was home._

 _Alex looked up from his book over the edge of the couch and saw John come in the door, but he couldn't see his face. "Hey, how was your trip?"_

" _Please tell me we have some kind of alcohol in the fridge and at least one frozen pizza."_

"… _I take it that it didn't go well."_

" _Sure as hell it didn't go well," he chuckled at his own rhyme and opened the scarcely filled fridge, snatching up a single beer._

" _Grab me one, too."_

 _John harrumphed but got Alex a bottle too, tossing it to him as John fell onto the side of the couch. His legs were resting on Alex's._

" _So what happened?" Alex asked, preparing himself for one of John's fits._

" _What do you mean?"_

" _C'mon. You come home at ten-thirty after a week-long trip to visit your family and you're in a pissy mood, asking for beer and pizza. What happened?"_

" _Nothing out of the ordinary."_

" _Really? Are you sure? Because two months from now I don't want to be hearing about-"_

" _Jeez, Alex. Can you give me a break? I've been driving for hours."_

" _The last time you went home you said that you and your dad had an hour long screaming match and your neighbors called the police. You went out to a bar and nearly knocked some poor guy's teeth out. I don't feel like bailing you out of a South Carolina jail if you commit a felony or something."_

 _John shifted in his place, eyes raging, flitting around the room, never looking at Alex. He took a swig from his bottle._

" _What do you want from me, Alex? You want me to throw all my shit at you, start screaming at_ you _until the neighbors call or until I break something?"_

" _I want you to talk to me when you're pissed instead of letting your temper run wild."_

" _Speak for yourself."_

" _When I lose my temper I don't punch a brick wall and break my hand."_

 _John looked at Alex with no anger, only like a sad puppy that had been kicked too many times. Like he was waiting for Alex to pity him, take him up in his arms, take him home, give him food and water and a pillow to sleep on._

 _Alex sighed, taking his glasses off to rub the tiredness out of his eyes. "Is there anything I can do, John?"_

 _John's eyes were shattered into a kaleidoscope that made Alex dizzy. "No. Nothing."_

 _There was nothing he could do, so he let John finish his beer and go off to bed._

 _It wasn't until Alex had finished his book and went to his own room that he heard John sobbing._

x

x x

x x x

Something was beeping loudly in Alex's ear and it wouldn't stop.

He woke up, pain shooting through his head with every obnoxious tone. He groaned and covered his ears, but the beeping didn't stop. His hands were shaking as he swung his legs over the side of his bed and propped himself up so he was sitting on the sheets. Vibrating on his nightstand, his phone beeped on, and he caught it before it fell off of the edge.

"Didn't I tell you to call me?"

"You did."

"And why didn't you call me?"

"I got busy."

"Sure you did."

"Thanks for waking me up from my well-needed sleep, by the way."

"Any time. Now, I have to talk to you."

"I never would have guessed."

"Cut the snark. This is serious."

"Okay."

"I'm coming back from London."

"What? You don't graduate for a year."

"I'm coming back, Alex. That's all I'm telling you right now. And I wanted to know if I could live with you."

Blind.

"…"

Cold.

"…"

Gray.

"Only for a short time."

Black.

"…"

Alex cleared his throat. "When are you moving in?"

Sigh. "Next Wednesday."

It was Saturday.

"Do you need me to pick you up at the airport or anything?"

"No, I have it all arranged."

"Okay."

"Thank you, Alex. I didn't think you'd say yes."

Pain.

"What made you think that?"

Screech.

"Well, I just thought you'd want to move out of your place, or you'd move in with Peggy and Laf and Herc."

Breathe.

"No, I don't really want to leave here."

Pause. "Well…"

"…"

"Well, I definitely need to get out of this place."

"Then we'll get you out."

"Are you sure, Alex? If you don't want me there I can move in with my parents again… yeesh. Or I'm sure Peggy and co. would take me in."

"No, no. I should probably have someone here with me. I'm pretty sure I drank some several-weeks expired milk yesterday."

Laugh. "Well, okay then."

"Yeah."

"I miss you, Alex."

"I miss you too, Angelica."

"I'll see you next week."

"See you next week."

She hung up first.

x x x

x x

x

" _Truth or Dare?" John asked Alex excitedly, rocking in his seat. Outside thunder shook the walls and the heavy rain made it near impossible for Alex to hear him._

 _The power was out, and Alex and John were sitting at the foot of their couch, with a single flashlight between them. They had no candles in the house, and without the single light it was nearly black._

 _Alex rolled his eyes. "Seriously?"_

" _Seriously. Truth or Dare?"_

 _Alex thought for a moment._

" _Truth."_

" _Coward."_

" _Dare."_

" _No take backs!"_

" _Well then ask me something already and stop insulting my honor."_

" _Okay, then. If you were to go back and relive one year of your life, what year would it be?"_

" _Last year."_

" _Why?"_

" _You already asked me something."_

 _John slumped back, disappointed, but conceded._

" _Okay, now you. Truth or Dare?"_

 _Grin. "Dare."_

 _Alex thought for a moment, looking up at the dark ceiling. "I dare you to do something that you only do when you're alone."_

 _John looked at him, questioningly, with a devilish curl to his lips._

" _Keep it PG-13, Laurens."_

" _Fine, then."_

 _John looked straight ahead, only the silhouette of his face outlined in the flickering light from the flashlight._

 _And then he began to sing._

"I'm lying on the moon," _John started softly, quiet against the roaring rain._

 _Alex's heart dropped._

"My dear, I'll be there soon."

 _John's voice got a bit louder, just a little raspy, even and sweet and beautiful._

 _Alex couldn't breathe._

"There's things I wish I knew."

 _The thunder hushed, the rain slowed, as if they were trying to hear John too._

"There's nothing I'd keep from you."

 _Hush._

"It's a dark and shiny place."

 _Soft._

"But with you, my dear-"

 _Beautiful._

"-I'm safe, and we're a million miles away."

 _The rain and the thunder and the silence and Alex's thumping heart were all too loud and none of them were John's voice and Alex dug his fingernails into his hands._

" _Truth or Dare," John asked._

" _Dare," Alex answered immediately._

" _Kiss me."_

 _Alex didn't even hesitate._

x

x x

x x x

The apartment was quiet. Not even the sounds from the streams of vehicles could penetrate the quiet of Alex's mind, and he sat at his small kitchen table, doing nothing but sitting and staring at the pile of dirty dishes from the night before.

The ticket was on the table in front of him.

By then, Alex had memorized every crease, every smudged letter of it.

He thought he knew what he was supposed to do, but he wasn't sure he wanted to do it.

He went to the fridge and ate a bit of leftovers from yesterday.

He glanced at the dirty dishes.

He went to his room and grabbed a sweatshirt, went back to the kitchen, grabbed the ticket from the table, and started down the hall, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

He wasn't even sure he knew where his keys were if he'd wanted to.

* * *

 _ **Playlist:**_

 _Float On / Modest Mouse_

 _Finale B / Rent (Original Broadway Cast)_

 _Title and Registration / Death Cab for Cutie_

 _Ode To Sleep (2011) / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _Go Boi / Daveed Diggs_

 _Emmylou / Vance Joy_

 _When I Was Your Man / Aaron Tveit_

 _Burn / Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox_

 _Car Radio (2011) / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _How's It Going To Be / Third Eye Blind_

 _When You're Home / In The Heights_

 _Where Is The Love / Josh Vietti_

 _Drive / Halsey_

 _Death Of A Bachelor / Panic! At the Disco_

 _Africa / Toto_

 _One Song Glory / Aaron Tveit_

 _The Moon Song / Karen O_


	3. so where do we begin

**Author's Note:** **Whoa. So I sort of died. Sorry about that.**

 **NEW CHAPTER. IT'S NOT LONG ENOUGH TO MAKE UP FOR MY ABSENCE AND MY FUTURE HIATUS BUT YEAP HERE IT IS. I've decided to do Nanowrimo and die some more, so I'll probably be disappearing for all November unless I fail or something. Also, I'm gonna try and update LLJL next, so this one will probably be put off for awhile.**

 **So yeah. This was a very stop/start chapter, so sorry if it's sort of uneven or for any consistency errors. I haven't had much time to edit and I wanted to get it up when it was finished.**

 **Yes, it's one huge Dead Poet's Society reference. Lol.**

 **Playlist at the bottom, like always.**

 **Title from Sick of Losing Soulmates by Dodie (Clark) or doddleoddle and YALL NEED TO LISTEN TO IT SRSLY.**

* * *

x x x

x x

x

" _What do you mean you don't know how to drive?!" Alex shrunk back from John's intense stare, his parted lips, his demanding words._

" _I-I never had a car, or a real reason to be driving, or someone to teach me…"_

" _Now you do."_

" _What?"_

" _I'm going to teach you how to drive, Alex."_

" _I'm not sure that's legal."_

" _My dad's a lawmaker. If I want it to be legal, it will be legal. At least for me."_

 _John grabbed the sleeve of Alex's sweatshirt and dragged him out the door of their new apartment._

 _Theirs._

 _Sharing an apartment with John Laurens was different from any other place Alex had lived, and anyone he'd ever lived with. And he loved it. No two people were better suited for dealing with each other's shit than Alex and John. It only made sense that they would move in together._

 _Alex hoped they never had to move out._

 _Alex was sharing an apartment with John Laurens and now he was teaching him how to drive a car._

" _John, stop," Alex whined, digging his feet into the worn carpet, even though John pulled him onward. "I don't even really want to drive. It's not like I'll ever really have to, since I never really go anywhere that I can't get to by the subway or a bus or walking."_

" _Alexander," John said. John rarely said Alex's full name, only when he was teasing, or, mad that Alex wasn't listening to him. "Most grown-ass adults know how to drive. You're a grown-ass adult, are you not?"_

 _Alex didn't bother answering. John wouldn't be swayed. Alex knew that it was best to go along with John's plans rather than fight them._

 _They stared at each other in the hallway, John still holding Alex's sleeve between his fingers._

" _Alright," Alex conceded, and John smiled, and began pulling Alex down to the street again. "But if I crash, I'm blaming you," he shouted as John ran down the hall, Alex in tow, both of them laughing like they'd never stop._

x

x x

x x x

Alex thought he might throw up.

He'd barely been out of his apartment in the three months since John died. He hadn't so much _touched_ a vehicle. And now he was hanging on the subway's safety bar for dear life, trying to calm the storm in his stomach.

Squeezing his eyes shut, his ears formed a wall between him and the white noise of the train car around him. All he had left to tell him how many stops he had left was the abrupt halting motion at each one.

Slow.

Crash.

Stop.

Dead.

Breathe.

He counted down by tapping his fingers on his leg, over and over and over again.

 _Four, Four, Fourfourfour, four, four, four, Four, Four, four, fouuur, FOUR…_

Deep Breath.

Crash.

Noise.

…

…

… _three, three, three._

Alex didn't know how he survived the ride, but he did, and he did not feel good about it. Not accomplished. Not righteous. Numb. Shit. John's voice played in his head.

 _Most grown-ass adults can ride the fucking subway without having a panic attack. You're a grown-ass adult, are you not?_

Alex kept his head down while he walked to the theater. He was surprised that his feet knew where they were going, because his mind hadn't remembered.

Alex had always been terrible with directions. Somehow, he found his way to the theater.

It looked just as crappy and old as it had the last time he'd seen it, which was at least year ago. Alex felt a twinge of guilt that they'd abandoned it for so long.

All the lights were burnt out on it's sign.

John and Alex had admired its scrappy qualities before.

Now, Alex could empathize.

He wasn't even sure that it was open, wasn't even sure if he'd find some small trace of John in there, or just a whole lot of dust and rotted candy.

He went inside anyway.

x x x

x x

x

 _John was crying._

 _John never cried._

 _Alex didn't know what to do._

" _That good, huh?" he asked, trying not to laugh at his blubbering friend. The credits were rolling. In fact, the credits were almost over, and John had been crying for the past twenty minutes, at least._

 _John wiped the tears from his eyes and took a shaky breath. "Yeah."_

" _Ready to go?"_

" _Yeah."_

 _Alex got up and walked out of the row of seats and into the aisle. John wasn't following._

" _John, you coming?"_

 _He sniffled again, still staring straight ahead at the screen. "The name's Nuwanda."_

x

x x

x x x

Alex was surprised that the door hadn't fallen off its hinges yet, since he felt it shudder when he opened it lightly. He was assaulted by the smell of dust and mildew and stale popcorn, and he had to get used to the dim lights in the building from the light on the street.

A man was at the ticket booth, the same man that was there whenever John and Alex used to come here. He looked old, but not old enough that he looked like he'd drop dead at any moment. Like, a warm, fuzzy, you should go visit your grandparents kind of old.

Only his eyes moved to look atAlex when he walked in.

Alex hadn't brought money to buy a ticket, not like he was planning on staying for a movie or anything. He felt out of place, like he was a book that had his pages ripped out and put back together so it looked okay, but the inside was all mixed up and the story was broken.

Shatter.

Alex went to the counter.

"Hello," the old man said, his voice stern and steady despite his hunched shoulders and worn face. "What can I do for you today?"

Alex didn't know.

"Um, well, a friend of mine and I used to come here a lot."

The man looked at Alex, trying to understand him through squinted, glasses covered eyes, and nodded.

"And I guess… I don't know. I guess I came looking for something. But it's obviously not here. I'm sorry, I'll just leave-" Alex was flustered, frustrated with John and himself and his shaking hands that he clenched into fists just so he could feel his tendons moving, and he turned to leave, embarrassed and ashamed of himself for actually thinking that John had left him something.

"Wait, are you Alex? Alex Hamilton?" the man said, his hand outstretched.

Alex stopped. Turned back. Lips trembling.

"Yeah."

"I have something for you, if you'll wait a moment."

Alex waited.

Shattered.

Froze.

Burned.

Numb.

He hadn't moved when the man came back, holding a thick envelope.

"A fellow came in a few months ago and said that you'd probably be stopping by, and if you did, to give it to you."

Alex nodded.

"I told that kid that I ain't no mailman, and he said that there wasn't a single mailman that could deliver it."

If Alex hadn't been so frozen he would have laughed.

The man slid the envelope to the end of the counter and Alex walked toward it slowly. "His name's John, am I remembering right?"

Alex nodded, slipping the envelope, with his name in John's loopy cursive written across the middle, into his hands.

"Tell 'im that the United States Postal Service exists for a reason."

"Sorry, sir, but I can't." Alex was turning to leave, needing to get out of there before he starting screaming or crying or both because John was leaving things for him John had it all planned out John wanted him-

"Hey!" the man stood up, and Alex hoped he wasn't going to start running after him. "Why can't you?"

Alex froze.

"Because three months ago he ran his car into the side of an abandoned factory and killed himself."

Alex was a foot away from the door. The man didn't move, didn't speak.

"Thank you for giving this to me," Alex told him, his voice quiet, but he knew the man could hear him. He walked out without looking back and steeled himself for the ride home, the envelope grasped between his hands.

x x x

x x

x

 _I'm scared._

 _Terrified._

 _That it's my fault._

 _And he left me that just to make sure I knew._

…

…

 _What else could it say? That he's sorry, like how he told everyone else but me? He's sorry for not saying sorry but he's not sorry for what he did?_

…

 _That's probably something he would do._

x

x x

x x x

The envelope stayed sealed the rest of the weekend. Alex stared at it, but he didn't open it. Couldn't.

He wrote some more on Monday. It drained him until he was numb and empty. He tried to work on some school work and finished half an essay before his face crashed on his desk.

On Tuesday, it seemed unavoidable. He'd always been anxious and curious and hated surprises. Hated not knowing.

He woke up to a blank computer screen.

Heavy in his nose and fingertips.

Hollow everywhere else.

The envelope sat unopened.

Unscathed.

Just his name in John's writing.

The sun was just coming up, slow and lazy and orange and Alex thought of early mornings and slow breakfasts with John in their kitchen, cool air coming through the windows, waking them to a new day along with warm, strong coffee.

A ring of purple sat along the skyline, and the soft noise of traffic tickled his ears.

Soft.

Numb.

Cold.

The envelope sat on his bed, where he should have slept but rarely ever did.

He hadn't had a good night sleep in his bed in a long time.

The envelope laid on his sheets like it belonged there, more comfortable than he'd ever been.

x x x

x x

x

 _The ceiling was white and broad and perfect and theirs._

 _There was a brown water stain in the left corner on the farther wall with the window._

 _Theirs._

 _Perfect._

 _The room was empty save a few boxes and their single mattress and John and Alex._

 _The both laid on their backs on the bare mattress on their floor, the sun casting orange and yellow and purple lights over them, warm on their bare hands and feet._

 _They were quiet._

 _Smiling._

 _Bright._

 _Theirs._

" _I think this is your room," John said next to him, his voice warm between their walls and against Alex's skin, warm like sunlight._

" _Huh?" Alex questioned distractedly, not knowing what John had actually said. He was still focused on the light cast on the ceiling. Orange and yellow and purple._

 _John shifted on the mattress which brought Alex out of his daze and into John's stare._

" _This room. It fits you." He settled back again. "It's yours. So is the bed."_

" _Where are you gonna sleep?"_

" _In your bed." Grin._

 _Alex gave him a look that he hoped wasn't mortified._

" _We'll go get mine when Herc can loan us his truck. I hope you don't mind sharing until then."_

 _Alex sighed. "No, not at all."_

 _They didn't unpack any of their boxes. They barely moved except to go out for pizza to celebrate, their friends basically breaking in and dragging them to the nearest diner. "We were just hoping we didn't get the wrong floor number or something," was all Lafayette said after the fact._

 _When they finally settled down for the night, on Alex's bed in Alex's room with one spare blanket shared between them, it was dark._

 _They both laid on their backs, looking at the shadowed ceiling._

" _Welcome home," John said softly._

 _It took them two weeks to go get John's bed._

x

x x

x x x

Alex was awake and he was breathing and he was alive and he was scared.

He shuffled over to the foot of his bed and stared at the envelope a little while longer before he slipped his fingers beneath it.

It sat on his fingertips, cold, white, and heavy when he picked it up.

Breathe.

Heave.

Rip.

Crash.

He slipped his fingers under the wrinkled tab and slid-

Crash Burn Rip Crunch Pull Tug Numb Thump Blood Tear Boom Scratch

-it open and then it was.

Breathe.

Alex closed his eyes as he took the contents out and set them down.

It was a large stack and there were still small scraps of paper falling from the envelope when he opened his eyes.

He could barely make sense of anything so he didn't try to. He went to the kitchen, made himself a cup of coffee with half a cup of sugar.

He watched half an hour of a crime show, then when a new episode came on and it started with a car crash Alex turned it off.

Then he was alone in the quiet.

He wandered around for a while before finding his way back to his room.

Alex had never been great at living alone.

Settling crisscross on the rumpled comforter, he nearly splashed his coffee all over himself before he sat it on his nightstand carefully. He spread the contents out in front of him so he could see it all, cringing every time he crinkled or rumpled or ripped a paper.

His breathing was short and shallow but heavy in his chest, aching.

A stack of tickets, John's tickets, from the movie theater. Alex flipped through them. It was nearly every movie they'd ever seen together.

A CD. Alex set it aside. He didn't think he'd ever actually play it.

One of John's drawings of a bouquet of flowers.

Pressed flowers, sapped of color. Alex felt them crumble under his fingers when he moved them.

Several sheet music receipts.

A few pieces ripped to shreds. Some of Alex's favorite Mozart pieces.

And a note. Just like the other. In John's hand, on a piece of ripped notebook paper, crinkled and folded at the corners. Alex sucked in a breath to keep from crying.

 _If we shadows have offended / Think but this, and all is mended,_

"John, you bastard," Alex whispered, not without affection, tears building in his eyelids.

So it was a scavenger hunt.

John always like games and riddles, making them up for Alex to solve.

Alex never really had time for them, but because they made John happy he did them, slyly presenting the solution and grinning at John's shocked expression. "You actually solved it?!"

Alex smiled, just for a heartbeat, thinking of those moments. Then he remembered that there would be no more moments like those.

Closing his eyes, he breathed, in, and out. In, and out.

John left him one last game.

And he was damn well going to play it.

x x x

Alex stayed up late into the night, staring at the contents from the envelope and debating playing the CD or not, and woke up to an insistent banging and a headache, his face in the middle of all the papers.

Every part of his body ached, but the knocking was urgent, so he hauled himself out of bed and down the hall to the door, not before running into several walls.

When he opened the door, Angelica stood before him, slouching under the weight of a box in her arms, her fist still rearing to hit the door. Or Alex's face, which is what happened.

"Asshole! I've been out here for ten minutes!" she apologized.

Alex didn't argue; he was an asshole. All he replied was, "And you didn't think of putting the box down?"

She answered by shoving it into his chest and pointing her finger at him. He sensed a rant/lecture coming on, one that he definitely deserved for forgetting that she was moving in today.

"You're going to take that to my room, and then come and help me unload the rest from the trailer."

Alex looked down the hall nervously, then back at Angelica. She looked at him, and lowered her finger, softened her expression.

"You haven't cleared out his room yet, have you?"

Her eyes were sad, and he couldn't meet them when he answered, "No. I haven't. Couldn't."

She sighed, rubbed the wrinkle between her eyes. "C'mon. Let's unload. Then we'll… sort everything out. Okay?"

Alex nodded and followed her out into the hall.

x x x

Neither of them knew where to start. Standing awkwardly at the threshold to John's room, Angelica's boxes that lined the halls and were stacked on every large piece of furniture seemed to shove them closer to the dim void. Alex stared at the carpet while Angelica stepped inside, her gaze assessing what was left of John.

What was left.

Of…

 _John._

Alex found a faded stain in the corner and fixed his sight on it, unblinking.

"Well, he sure didn't have all that much stuff," Angelica observed.

"Most of it was at his family's home. This is just…" Alex murmured, not able to finish his own thought.

"Are you going to bring it back there?"

For the first time, Alex looked up. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Are you going to bring this stuff back to his house?"

Alex didn't know. He didn't know at all, and the blank tunnel in his mind brought his functioning to a minimal.

Angelica walked over and grabbed his sleeve, tapped his chin and forced him to look at her. Although her eyes were sad, she held a shaky smile. "Alex, he won't be coming back for any of this. You're not betraying him by getting rid of his stuff. It's not him, and it can't be him."

"I know that. I just… I don't know how… I can't…"

"Alex, did John ever really care about having stuff?"

Alex looked at her shyly. "No. He didn't give a crap about what he had. That's why he loved that piece of shit car."

Angelica smiled and looked at the group, as if she could remember them in John's shitty car, belting out 80s pop and Spanish hip hop and those weird French rap songs that Herc and Lafayette and Eliza liked so much. At least, that's what Alex thought of, and he wasn't sure if he was going to laugh or cry.

"Right. So would he really care if you cleared out his room and threw all his crappy furniture in the trash?"

Alex found himself giggling. "He'd probably laugh and insist we burn it."

Angelica laughed and her mouth went into a small "O" like it did whenever she got an idea. "We should. We should have a campfire and burn it all."

"Wait," Alex felt that insistent "can't" pull at his chest. "We have to sort through it and make sure we're not burning anything… valuable."

"Of course. I never said that you couldn't keep any of this shit. You just can't keep a roomful of it. I don't care how buddy-buddy we are, I'm getting my own room."

Alex sighed, finally taking in every wall and table and piece of clothes thrown on the floor. "Well, you probably won't get it tonight."

Angelica sighed. "We'll see if I even get to sleep tonight. Okay, let's get at it!" She clapped her hands and Alex laughed. "I'll get the boxes, you get the music?"

"Sounds like a plan."

x x x

x x

x

" _It's amazing," Alex breathed. John stood beside him, the hand that held his paintbrush limp at his side._

" _I feel like it's done… but I also don't," John said, his voice heavy with tiredness, the horizon of sunlight through their window holding up the dark sky, hazy around the edges. Weighed down. John's shoulders drooped when he sighed. "Like, I did so much work on it, and it's just done. Over. It doesn't feel like it's finished, even though it is."_

" _It's amazing," Alex said again. "And of course it's not finished. You don't actually have anything in your room. These are just the walls. Now you got to actually put stuff in it and get all of your crap out of my room."_

 _John snorted but looked down shyly. "I didn't realize you were kicking me out," he teased._

 _Alex sighed and shook his head. "Not quite yet. We wouldn't want you to die from paint fumes, now would we?"_

 _Grimacing, John shook his head. "I've never liked the idea of dying from asphyxiation."_

" _Has anyone?"_

" _I suppose not."_

 _Alex nodded and took John's arm, some paint getting on his hand. "C'mon, let's go out and celebrate."_

 _Laughing, John threw his paintbrush down on the sheets that covered the floor and let Alex drag him out into the hall. "What? It's four in the morning? Where are we going to go?"_

" _Somewhere where they're open at four in the morning and they take in sleep-deprived paint-covered children."_

 _They laughed as they left behind John's delicate work, a hazy sky filled with stars, falling into the stormy sea and swallowed by its dark depths, to sink down with the dead flower petals and pearls and pens and treasures and knickknacks that had been left behind and swallowed by thick black curls, rimmed in red and gold and resting on white feathers and dreams._

x

x x

x x x

Alex had to admit, Angelica knew what she was doing. That really shouldn't have surprised him, and it didn't, really.

The thing that surprised him the most was that clearing out John's room didn't hurt like he thought it would. There was still an ache as he put John's things in a box and he'd knew he'd never see them again, but John didn't need them, and someone else probably did, and John would like that his stuff was going to help people. In fact, Angelica and him decided to donate far more than what they had previously thought, since none of John's family had asked for any of it back and it could definitely be put to use somewhere else. Angelica kept one of John's spare pillows because she hadn't brought one with her from London, except a crappy airport one for the plane.

Alex surprised himself in how little he kept.

He wouldn't let himself throw out any of John's drawings or notes, even if it only filled a corner of the page and the rest was blank. He filed them as neatly as he could into a folder that was soon bulging with notebook papers and thin sketch books and scrap napkins, and he got a new folder and began filling that one. Angelica made sure to find any ones he missed and started her own stack, commenting every once and awhile about a particularly excellent sketch.

"Alex," she looked at one paper, and glanced at him for a second. "Look, this one's of you." She passed him the paper a little reluctantly, even though she was smiling. Alex thought he saw her wipe away a tear, and he took the paper from her timidly, holding it between two fingers, an arm's distance away.

It was a drawing of him. A very, very good drawing of him on a nicer piece of paper than a sheet of loose leaf. In the drawing Alex was looking down at the ground and smiling, his hair pulled back and probably wearing three jackets. The detail was so perfect that he could see the flush in his cheeks and the faint crinkles by his eyes.

Alex felt a sob build up deep inside him but no tears came and he felt a hollow void eat away at him until there was a heavy hole encased in steel that sat in his chest.

He tucked the picture in the folder.

Angelica stood with a box and Alex blinked and noticed how empty John's room was now, and the reality of what they had just done set it. They'd taken down all his posters and pictures and the walls were bare and Alex could see the all of the beautiful, stunning mural that John had worked so hard on during the first couple weeks that they'd moved in. He hadn't seen it all like that since John had finished it, and it was no less aweing now.

The hole in his chest expanded to his fingertips.

"Well," Angelica heaved out in a sigh, surveying the boxes that were clustered together on the empty floor. "I think that that's about the last of it."

"Yeah."

"Help me with these boxes and then we can start unpacking my stuff."

"On it."

They stacked the boxes along the halls and by the doors and in the corners and spaces that weren't used, far more organized and carefully than they had with Angelica's. By the time they'd swapped all the boxes out, Alex could barely stand on his feet. It was late.

Standing just outside the room, Angelica stopped him and leaned up against the wall. Alex rubbed his eyes, too tired to argue with what she was about to tell him or move past her.

"Hey, are you okay?" She didn't ask until he met her eyes, serious but concerned.

Alex laughed unenthusiastically. "'Okay' might be a stretch, but I'm fine, I'm just a little tired."

She studied him for a second, then nodded. "I'll be right back. You go start opening the boxes."

Alex could barely nod before she had disappeared down the hall.

He shuffled through the doorway so he was standing before several uneven stacks of boxes. Sighing, he reached out for one, sure he would collapse to the floor at any moment from exhaustion.

But that's not what he did. Catching a glimpse of a dusting of stars and swirls on the wall, he stood frozen, staring at the sweeping paint streaks and detailed nuances that crept in through the shadows.

All he could do was stand there.

And then the unbreakable hole shook through his body and burst and Alex fell to the floor, unable to breathe or move or do much more than hug his chest and try not to let the void swallow him.

His vision went fuzzy for only a second and then Angelica was there, holding him and the next time he could tell where he was he was propped up against the boxes, sitting on a pillow with a blanket draped over him.

He didn't realize that he'd been crying until he rubbed his eyes and they were wet.

The edges of his vision were still fuzzy and the next time it focused Angelica was next to him, handing him a mug.

"Can you hear me?" She asked loudly.

"Yes, I can hear you, and I'm pretty sure half the building can too."

"That's hot chocolate." She gestured to the mug after rolling her eyes. "And don't mock me for being concerned. 'Just a little tired'?"

Alex sighed and rubbed his face. "A lot tired."

"That's not it."

Pause.

Sigh.

Crack.

"No, it's not."

Angelica took a shaky breath and a gulp of hot chocolate before resting her head against the box she sat against. The faint light outlined her face. "I know I wasn't as close with John as you were. I don't really think any of us were. And I know you and I haven't actually talked about that, or anything like that, since he died. And I haven't seen you since the funeral, and I haven't tried to talk with you about it, but I'm here now and I'm trying and I know you don't think you need this or you think it will just make it worse, but _I_ need this, whether you believe that or not."

Alex looked at her, surprised, but she looked away and stared at the mug in her hands. "You may have been closer to him than the rest of us, but we all still cared for him, cared for you, and this is just as hard." A faint British accent made her words breathy, even when she could barely croak them out. Alex hadn't seen Angelica cry often, and the sight made his own lungs and eyes and throat ache.

"I'm _here_ , Alex. And even if you don't want to talk about it, I at least need you to try to help me understand. Because I don't. Or can't. And I'm not sure that you can help, or even if you think you can, but I'd like it if you'd _try._ "

Alex ran his finger over the rim of his mug. There was a chip near the handle and he wondered how hard he'd have to press against it with his finger to make it bleed.

"I don't know why he did it, Ang," Alex told her softly, her sniffles were all he heard aside from his heart beat.

"He sent me a text that said 'I'm sorry'. Eliza got a note, same with Laf and Herc and Peggy and John's sister. He left one at his family's house, in the empty garage where the car was." Her voice softened. "What did you get, Alex?"

He dug his finger into the chip, scratched his fingernail against it hoping to make it wider.

"Alex, please."

"I got a note."

"The same as the rest of us?" He couldn't help but notice how disappointed she sounded. Like the amount of pain John could have caused him wasn't enough to give some insight as to why he decided to kill himself. Fucking Christ. Like he was being selfish because he wanted to keep something to himself, because John-

Alex didn't realize how deeply he was breathing until Angelica said his name again. He couldn't be mad at her. Nothing was her fault. She just wanted some kind of closure, and she thought Alex could give it to her. He almost laughed at the idea.

Sigh. "I'm sorry, it's just – "

"He did.

"He did leave me a note.

"Right on my bed.

"Just a note."

Alex felt the tears build in his eyes and he blinked them out because he didn't like the pressure.

Angelica wrapped her hand around his wrist tentatively and he took her hand. "What did it say?"

"Nothing that you want to know."

She looked at him.

Sigh. "It was a quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream. 'So, Goodnight unto you all. / Give me your hands, if we be friends, / And Robin shall restore amends.' That was it. Nothing else."

She sighed, defeated. But then Alex thought of the tickets. The theater. The package. The game

"Wait," he whispered. "That's not it."

"There was something else?"

"Not in the note, and it's probably crazy, actually."

She laughed. "It probably wasn't crazy to him. What is it?"

"I think he left me a scavenger hunt."

Angelica looked promptly confused and disappointed. "Okay…"

"You know how he loved riddles and games and stuff like that. I found some old movie tickets in one of his sketchbooks and on a whim I went to the theater where we used to go and the guy gave me a package that John left me and there was a whole bunch of stuff… hold on."

Alex got up and gathered the stuff, then laid it out before Angelica excitedly, grateful to be sharing this with someone and not having it all on him.

She picked up the CD. "Have you listened to it yet?"

He shook his head. "I don't know if I want to. I guess… I guess I'm a bit afraid."

She only nodded and set it down, before looking over the rest of the papers and sighing. "I don't know what all of this means, but I do know one thing."

"What?"

"We've got a lot of work to do."

* * *

 **Playlist:**

(In case you couldn't tell, I just listened to tick, tick… BOOM!)

 _Then I'll Be Tired of You / John Coltrane_

 _Therapy / tick, tick… BOOM!_

 _Little Talks / Of Monsters and Men_

 _Wake Me Up (Despiertame) / Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox_

 _30/90 / tick, tick… BOOM!_

 _Life Support / Sam Smith_

 _Not Today / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _Tune Up 1-3 / Rent (Original Broadway Cast)_

 _Ends / clipping._

 _Sonatina, Op. 46 / Mieczyslaw Weinberg_

 _Come To Your Senses / tick, tick… BOOM!_

 _Lovely / Twenty-One Pilots_

 _Take Me Out / Franz Ferdinand_

 _Dreaming of You / Selena_

 _Windows / AWOLNATION_

 _Besos y Copas / Alicia Villarreal_

 _Tessellate / alt-j_

 _Talk / Coldplay_

 _Sick of Losing Soulmates / Dodie_


End file.
